In a clinic, a medical practice, or another medical institution and particularly in an operating room or another medical treatment space, several medical devices can exchange data via a medical network. Medical devices can be, for example, devices used for endoscopy, other devices for imaging or non-imaging diagnostics, surgical devices, heart-lung machines and other devices for substituting bodily functions, display screens and user interfaces for medical staff. An outage of a medical device can constitute a risk for a patient's health and life.
Despite the advantageous and desired exchange of data between medical devices, in order to avoid harmful reciprocal action between said devices, considerable expense is incurred in developing medical networks and corresponding interfaces on medical devices. To prevent disturbing impacts from sites outside the medical network, medical networks in many cases are operated as islands largely or completely isolated from the IT environment and in particular from the Internet.
However, isolation of a medical network from the Internet also has a series of disadvantages. In particular, it is desirable that medical staff that has no physical access to a device in the medical network should be able to observe or monitor parameters measured by medical devices or entered on medical devices. Also advantageous would be an evaluation of processes that are recorded or controlled by devices in the medical network, for example during an operation, in order, for instance, to analyze and optimize sequences. A purely technical monitoring of the devices in the medical network would be advantageous, for example with respect to meeting servicing deadlines and planning maintenance tasks.